18
Cunning

0
Resolve

Introduction

Hello everyone, I'm TheDeadWarlock from EUW. This is my first ever guide! As for myself, I've been playing this hell hole of a game for the past 6 years, since season 1. Now, I know what youre thinking "oh 6 years of experience and still gold" and to be fair, I do NOT play like a gold, at all, I'd love to show you if you would like to duo! :D Now, back to the build. This is a pretty simple Pantheon build but it requires YOU to assess the situation and act accordingly. So yeah, I won't hold your hand through all of it ^^

Oh and, please read the notes on items and such, they are quite informative :3

Pros / Cons

Pros

+ Great early potential

+ Great burst damage

+ Can build tank OR assassin

+ Can take out the enemy carries fairly easily

+ Top notch global presence/ganking ability

Cons

- Falls off late (hard!)

- Hard to land ult

- Your team usually doesn't follow your W/R

- And did I mention he falls off late?

Items

The items are weird for Pantheon , you have to choose 1 item from different, but very limited pools of items. It's like taking only 1 shot each from different bars and clubs around the town, if that makes sense. So, we won't be building a focused build, of course, you can do that too, but for me, this kind of mixed build worked best. I start building agressive and progressively get tankier, because, like I said and as we all know, Pantheon falls off late.
The core item, namely The Black Cleaver, is an amazing item for pantheon, your full combo deals 8 blows and the last 2 of those really, and I mean REALLY hurt with this item. It gives you the much needed mobility and CDR as well. Just an awesome item overall and should always be built on Pantheon.
The rest of the items are really your choice and should change from game to game, one game you might be laning vs a Yasuo with such a team comp that you might decide to buy Randuin's Omen but in another game when youre laning against Yasuo, you might need to build Dead Man's Plate instead.
Give the items some thought, all of the armor items share a Cloth Armor as base item and the MR items share Null-Magic Mantle. Buy the base item and see what you need.

Iceborn Gauntlet :
Let's talk about this item for a moment. Iceborn Gauntlet is a very good item over all but does it work on Pantheon? The short answer is "Yes". And as for how and why, it works well with your combos, when you jump on someone and AA, it slows them and leaves a slowing area underneath, which you will be utilizing when youre casting your Heartseeker Strike. It is by no means a vital item but when you need that slight tankiness and mana, this item is the prime choice.
You may be wondering "Why not get Trinity Force instead?". Well, I've given it a lot of thought and realized that Pantheon benefits more from the slow and the armor of Iceborn Gauntlet compared to the attack and movement speed of Trinity Force.

Defensive Extras Explained

Thornmail : Against a heavy AD team, this is a miraculously good item.

Spirit Visage : I haven't built this item very often but when the enemy team is AP heavy and you need a little boost to your sustain, this helps.

Warmog's Armor : Not a common choice, build it when the skirmishes are too long and you find yourself needing to go back to base before fighting again.

Guardian Angel : Again, not very common but this is a valid choice if you seem to be engaging more than other teammates.

Death's Dance : This is a mechanically intricate item and is actually useful on Pantheon especially if the game involves a lot of poking. A useful item overall and adds a bit of survivability too.

The Bloodthirster : Now this is a full AD build item. Although I wouldnt recommend this item, it is a good choice in case youre roflstomping the enemy.

Youmuu's Ghostblade : Everyone seems to be very fond of this item but I personally picked different items over this since I don't think this is a very useful item.

Essence Reaver : This is actually an interesting choice, especially in laning since Pantheon is a VERY mana hungry champ. This gives you that much needed mana regen especially when youre last hitting with the passive of Heartseeker Strike.

Frozen Mallet : This gives you the very much needed soft cc to keep the opponents in your E and the survivability needed to keep casting it under the focus of 2 people. A very good item and has a good build path too.

Sterak's Gage : This is an interesting item and a good choice if it seems like youre the only one going tank. Pick this, and it will save your life more than once.

Laning

It is actually quite simple to lane with Pantheon; If you can poke your opponent without being harrassed back, stay in between THEIR caster and melee minions, so you can zone them while being able to farm. But, if you CAN'T "out-poke" them, then you should try and stay behind your own caster minions and focus on getting every last hit you can without receiving too much damage.

It may sound trivial, but whenever you take damage, make sure you return some with Spear Shot if the enemy is already in range.

And in either case, be sure to ask your jungler to gank you because you can set some pretty good ganks thanks to your Aegis of Zeonia and even tower dive at a pretty early stage, which really puts you and your jungler ahead.

Skill Combos

The very basic of Pantheon is the Spear Shot , you start all of your combos and end all of your combos. Try and get used to it's range because you will be using it very often and it is quite handy to have it on smart cast. But note that the Spear Shot does NOT reset your AA timer.
Now, personally I don't know if these combos have any names so I will refer to them with simple skill orders and AA (as in auto-attack).

Q - AA - Q :
This is a very simple, close range combo that you can execute to get the proc on Thunderlord's Decree . It is simple, quick, it gets the trading done.

Q - W - AA - Q :
Again, a very simple combo but this time, it is assumed that you start the combo from afar, so you pop your W and get close, land an AA and back away as you Q. This is particularly useful against champions who can out-trade you very easy, very quick, like Trundle.

Q - W - AA - E (- AA -) Q :
This one is just a tad bit tricky because while it is not necessary to land an AA between E and Q, it certainly isnt easy because you have a very limited window to do so. You will start being able to do it once you get the hang of how long you channel for during E. But until then, you can opt out the AA and still execute this combo very well.

Ult-stun :
This is fairly simple, while youre in your ult, as in once you have jumped up but havent crashed down, you can pre-emptively cast your W to jump onto whoever you choose who was in your ult. It happens real quick, and works quite well especially if youre ganking or chasing someone.

Summary

Alright peeps, this is my take on the Spartan of Runeterra. I think Pantheon is a champion with a lot of play potential as he is quite difficult to beat in both top and mid lane.

Feel free to leave any questions and suggestions you have down in the comments and feel free to add me if you wish!

I will keep updating the build as much as I can, possibly adding new content too in the future should there be a demand for it.